


The Chitauri Invasion

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Series: T-2000 series [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), The Avengers (2012), The Terminator (1984), Thor (2011), Thor: The Dark World Prelude (Comic)
Genre: Alternate Future, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, F/M, Terminator Darcy Lewis, Terminators, ignores Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 22:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2042331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s an invasion,” said Darcy. “New York is being invaded.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chitauri Invasion

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is basically a prelude to the next one, which will be set during Thor: The Dark World.

“Okay, so this sucks,” Darcy announced, on their second day in Tromso. “We’ve been here two days, most of our equipment is back in New York, and no one here seems to have a clue why SHIELD transferred us to their Tromso base. Seriously, what are we even doing here?”

“Tell me about it,” John grunted from where he sat sprawled in a chair, staring into space with a discontented expression.

“I’m sure Coulson had a reason,” Jane argued, although when Darcy analysed her tone, it lacked conviction. When Darcy scanned Jane's expression, she appeared just as bored and discontented as John.

Darcy compiled a list of possible activities, and selected the option which was most likely to be both entertaining and socially acceptable.

“That’s it, I’m using the lab computer to download movies on Netflix,” Darcy declared, getting to her feet.

“We could watch _I, Robot,_ ” John suggested as she walked past. Identifying his suggestion as an attempt to irritate her, Darcy responded by kicking him in the leg with moderate force as she walked past. John winced in an expression of pain, but a moment later he sent a smirk in Darcy’s direction.

“I suppose it’s not like we have anything else to do,” Jane sighed. Darcy identified her response as a form of agreement. “Is _I, Robot_ anything like the book?”

“Nah, they butchered Susan Calvin’s character,” said John, watching Darcy as she walked over to the console for the lab’s computer.

“Oh.” Jane looked disappointed.

“I never liked the Three Laws all that much anyway,” Darcy muttered, logging on to the machine. “You’re an Asimov fan?”

At the far end of her visual range, Darcy watched as John shrugged.

“I wouldn’t say a fan, but I spent a lot of time as a teenager reading sci-fi about sentient machines.” He sat forward in his seat, glancing at Jane and Darcy. “Hey, does anyone else think there’s something funky going on with why we’re here? I mean, if I had to guess, I’d say the only reason we’re here is to get us out of New York.”

“Well, yeah. It was pretty obvious.” Darcy had already reached the same conclusion.

John’s expression was a combination of annoyance, chagrin, and disgust.

“Screw you, Darce.”

“Maybe later,” Darcy drawled. John’s expression changed to one of amusement, which had been Darcy’s intent.

“Ugh, stop flirting,” said Jane. Darcy identified her expression as ‘impatient.’ “Why would they want us out of New York?”

“I could find out,” Darcy suggested, modulating her voice so that her tone was one that a human would identify as ‘enticing’.

“Yes, let’s hack SHIELD,” John said. Darcy identified his tone as ‘enthusiastic.’ “Find out why they really sent us here.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea–” Jane began, but Darcy arranged her features into a smile, and prepared to hack into SHIELD’s systems.

It would have been more expedient to simply connect wirelessly to SHIELD’s systems herself and hack into them for the information she wanted, but that would have revealed her existence as a machine to Jane. In order to maintain her primary objective, it was necessary to hack SHIELD’s systems the human way.

Five minutes later, Darcy was hacking into the live video feed being distributed across the helicarrier’s computer network.

“Jane,” she said, as the footage filled the screen, “you should see this.”

“Holy crap!” said John, staring with wide eyes at the unidentifiable creatures filling the screen. “What the hell are those?”

“What? What are you looking at?” Jane asked, as Darcy turned the projector on. A moment later the video footage was projecting onto a wall of the lab.

Jane gasped as she watched Thor attacking an enormous creature that was levitating its way between two skyscrapers.

For several minutes there was silence as the three of them watched the footage.

“Well,” said John eventually, “I guess we know why SHIELD wanted us out of New York.”

Darcy scanned the footage, and picked out tiny forms clinging to the enormous creature. She captured images of the tiny figures and enlarged them, until the images showed members of a humanoid non-human species wearing unfamiliar armour and holding weaponry of advanced design.

“It’s an invasion,” Darcy said. The information caused an emotional response, and she allowed her hands to curl into fists. “New York is being invaded.”

Based on the data accessible to her, there was an 86% probability that New York was being invaded by hostile aliens with the intention of conquering the Earth. She had insufficient data to predict the probability of their success.

Darcy reviewed her termination protocols.

As John and Jane watched the video footage being projected onto the lab wall, Daryc established a wireless connection with SHIELD’s computers, infiltrating their systems and hacking into SHIELD’s communication network. It took half a minute to find the frequency which was being used by the individuals fighting the unidentified beings in New York.

There was data attached to each communication unit identifying each individual using the communication network, and Darcy isolated each signal, until she was listening in to the conversations taking place between the handful of individuals fighting the unidentified beings, and the commanding personnel on the helicarrier bridge.

_Communication unit signals belonging to Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Nick Fury and Maria Hill identified._

Encoded in the signal being sent out by each communication unit was an identifying photograph of each individual, and Darcy reviewed each image simultaneously before adding them to her memory banks.

Files on Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and Nick Fury popped up as she did so, and Darcy reviewed them. Romanov, Barton, and Hill were missing from Darcy’s files, and she generated a new file for each of them, flagging them for further investigation later.

The video footage being projected onto the wall had changed. Vast swathes of New York were under attack by aliens, skyscrapers being damaged and destroyed by the gigantic levitating creatures as the humanoid aliens terrorised the people on the ground.

Darcy, John and Jane sat in silence, staring with varying expressions of appalled disbelief, as Darcy listened in to the conversations taking place over SHIELD’s communication network.

_“Sir! We have a bird in motion! Anyone on the deck, we have a rogue bird! We need to shut it down! Repeat! Take-off is not authorised!”_

_“Stark, you hearing me? We have a missile headed straight for the city.”_

_“How long?”_

_“Three minutes, at best. Stay low and wipe out the missile.”_

_“I can close it! Can anybody hear me? I can shut the portal down!”_

_“Do it!”_

_“No, wait!”_

_“Stark, these things are still coming!”_

_“I’ve got a nuke coming in, it’s going to blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it.”_

_“Stark, you know that’s a one-way trip?”_

As activity on the helicarrier bridge was as busy as ever, there was momentary silence from the four people with communication units fighting on the ground.

 _“Come on, Stark…”_ The words from Romanov were a faint murmur, audible nonetheless.

 _“Close it.”_ Rogers finally said, sounding grim and resigned.

Then:

_“Son of a gun!”_

A couple of minutes later:

_“What the hell? What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me.”_

_“We won.”_

Darcy arranged her features into a slight smile, and removed herself from SHIELD’s communication network.

John and Jane were still sitting watching the video footage being streamed from SHIELD. Thor, Stark, and the others were gone from view. Instead, John and Jane were looking out at a devastated landscape.

“It’s like 9/11 turned up to eleven,” said Darcy, watching the two humans for a response. John screwed up his face in dismayed agreement, while Jane stared at the video footage without responding to Darcy’s remark.

“Screw this,” John muttered. “I’m going back to my hotel and watching the news. I’m sick of sitting around while SHIELD dicks around with us. Too much is going on.” He grabbed his leather jacket from where it had been flung over a chair, and without a backward glance, left the lab.

Darcy looked at Jane.

“Jane?”

Jane took a deep breath.

“John’s right. Let’s go back to the hotel. And then I’m booking the first available flight to New York.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Darcy agreed.

* * *

By the time they got to New York, the clean-up effort had begun, and Thor?

Thor was gone.

Darcy watched Jane’s expression change, her eyes becoming glassy.

“Jane… he’ll come back,” Darcy said, in an attempt to offer reassurance.

“No.” Jane’s tone was one of finality. She didn’t look at Darcy. “He won’t. Thor was here, and then he just left again. No message. _Nothing_. Not a word. For the last year, every waking thought I had was of him. Of finding him. All the work I did. It was for nothing. So that’s it. I’m done.”

Jane stared straight ahead. Her expression was hard and resolute, but her eyes were wet.

Darcy was unable to identify a method of comfort which would have a positive effect.

“I’m sorry,” Darcy said, selecting the option with the highest probability of success.  “I know what he meant to you.”

“I was stupid.” Jane dashed away tears with one hand. “It was three days in the desert. That’s all. I built too much on it. Let my hopes run away with me.” She shook her head slowly. “No more.”

“Are you still going to try and build an Einstein-Rosen Bridge?” Darcy asked cautiously.

Jane hesitated.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, whatever you do, John and I will support you, you know that, right? Even if it means we have to explain to Director Fury why you quit in the middle of a top-priority project,” said Darcy. Darcy paused a moment to see if Jane would offer a response.

Jane didn’t.

Darcy was unsure what method of comfort to offer Jane, and resorted to her default option.

“Want to go eat ice cream and watch trashy movies?” she asked.

Jane let out a little breathy sound which wasn’t quite a laugh.

“Yeah,” she finally said. “Why not.”


End file.
